Joaquín Lara Midkiff

Joaquín is a junior in Saybrook College. The son of a former campesino and a civil servant, he was active in Oregon’s Chicano and labor rights movement, and remains committed to advocating for his many communities. He is double-majoring in ecology & evolutionary biology—studying behavioral ecology, phylogeny, and the philosophy of biology—and Latin American history, where he is interested in pre-Columbian history, colonial history, and Indigeneity. Additionally, he is co-President of Disability Empowerment for Yale, Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Review of Disability Experience, an editor for the Yale Review of International Studies and the Yale State & Local Policy Review, and a researcher at the Near lab (where he studies vertebrate diversity and behavioral ecology)

Areas of research and geographical interest:

Pre-Columbian literature & history; colonial Mesoamerica; Indigeneity; historical ecology of Latin America